History of the Prior Art
There are many conventional designs for both mechanical and wooden pencils in the prior art. However, there are a number of problems associated with their use.
With reference to FIG. 6-A a conventional wooden pencil is shown. Such pencils often need sharpening in order to maintain their lead portions in proper condition for writing or drawing and are often unable to be fully utilized due to improper sharpening techniques. Further, it is often necessary to use a number of wooden pencils having differing lead thicknesses or hardnesses if desired to achieve different writing, lining, shading or other drawing characteristics.
Various drawbacks are also associated with other conventional pencils having a series of interchangeable points, such as shown in FIG. 6-B. Often, if one of the writing elements of the pencil is lost, the entire pencil may become unusable. Also, the foremost or tip writing element of the pencil is often unstable during use; hence, it is not always possible to have good writing or drawing results using such a pencil.
Conventional mechanical pencils such as shown in FIG. 6-C are also not completely satisfactory. In some instances the collet used to grip the lead may be easily damaged.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a writing pencil and kit which may be used to overcome some of the problems encountered utilizing prior art pencils.